


make me better (make us great)

by TheQueenInTheNorth



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Sick Character, Sick Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:08:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22056781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheQueenInTheNorth/pseuds/TheQueenInTheNorth
Summary: Sinara is sick. Kasius does his best to help.
Relationships: Kasius/Sinara (Marvel)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	make me better (make us great)

Kasius doesn’t think too much of it when Tye complains that Sinara didn’t show for the Inhumans’ training.

It’s always at the crack of dawn and he’s told her more than once she needn’t get up for it; after the fortnight they had with the attempted uprising and having to wipe out an entire Terran level, he figures she finally took him up on the offer to sleep in. After all, she was exhausted enough the night before to actually retreat to her own chambers while he was still busy seeing off the reinforcements that had been brought in from Hala to assist the Watch.

She’s certainly earned a rest.

It isn’t until Hek-Sel brings up that she missed rounds, too, that he finds it worrisome. It’s nearly lunch. He doesn’t think Sinara’s even capable of lazing about that long.

There’s no response to his knock and he barely hesitates before barging into her chambers. She’s probably used to him doing so by now, anyway.

His heart sinks as his intrusion isn’t followed by a perfunctory reprimand and he gasps as he catches sight of Sinara, slumped in an armchair, not reacting to his presence.

He surges forward, drops to his knees next to her, shaking hand reaching for her wrist. He’s too panicked to find her pulse right away. But her skin is warm, too warm even.

“Sinara,”he chokes out around the lump in his throat.

She lifts her head slowly, with far more effort than it should take, her eyes glassy as she tries to fix them on him.

“Are you alright?”Kasius asks, hand going to her upper arm to support her as she struggles to sit up. It’s a stupid question; that it doesn’t earn him an eyeroll answers it. He amends,“What’s wrong?”

“Just need sleep,”she mumbles. Something that might pass for a scowl if she weren’t on the verge of unconsciousness flashes across her face.“Couldn’t make it back to bed.”

He very much doubts it’s that simple. He’s known Sinara to keep going with an infected gut wound during particularly dire circumstances.

But getting her into bed seems like a reasonable first step anyway, so he gathers her into his arms despite her protests. She drops her head against his shoulder even as she claims she can walk just fine.

Kasius sets her down on the bed and rearranges the covers but Sinara shakes her head and bats his hands away when he tries to pull them over her.

“Too warm,”she says.

He relents. Her skin is hot enough that he could feel it through his clothes as he carried her.

Even the simple t-shirt she apparently slept in is already slightly damp with sweat, he notes as he strokes her back. The next thing he registers with shocked delight is that it’s one of his shirts.

He tucks that information away for later, chiding himself for focusing on that right now, when Sinara needs his help. He coaxes her symptoms out of her, mentally calculating what a four on her pain scale would be on someone’s with a more reasonable approach to such things.

Fever, dizziness, limb pain, trouble breathing...

It all adds up to a dreadful suspicion.

“May I?”he asks, grasping the hem of her - his - her shirt.

She nods and he pushes it up, drawing in a sharp breath at the angry, purple rash across her ribcage.

Sinara sighs.“That bad?”

“How long have you been unwell?”Kasius asks instead of answering her question. This isn’t the beginning of the illness. The rash follows days after the first onset of fever in most patients.

She blinks at him slowly as she tries to remember.“Three days? Maybe four.”

“For fuck’s sake, Sinara!” Her eyes widen in surprise at the sudden outburst; he’d be more inclined to apologise if she wasn’t such a stubborn, reckless idiot.“You’re walking around with cull pox. Are you trying to kill yourself?”

Because the Skrulls certainly intended as many dead Kree as possible when resorting to biological warfare against their ancestors generations ago. They have developed medicine since, of course, but clearly Sinara has not bothered to visit the medic.

She pushes herself up onto her elbows, panic in her expression.

“I’ll get you the shots right away,”he begins to assure her.

She interrupts him before he can get into explaining the treatment,“You’ve got to leave, Kasius. I thought it was just a fever - I thought - you have to leave.”

He gives her a bewildered look; he just said he was going to go retrieve the necessary medicine. She jerks back as he reaches for her. Only then does he understand.

“You won’t infect me. I had it as a child,”he says, and she slumps back onto the bed.

“Of course you did,”she mumbles.

He doesn’t have to ask what she means. It’s less severe in children, if you have access to medicine. On Nux, he is certain, it is a death sentence.

Her fingers brush against his wrist as he gets up to leave.“Stay?”

“Of course,”he says and sits down on the edge of her bed. He can page the doctor to her chambers. He brushes her hair out of her face, she very nearly smiles.

She stops fighting sleep, her hand still on his wrist.

* * *

Sinara wakes up to shivers, a coughing fit, and Kasius gone. She gasps for breath and focuses on the stinging in her chest as best she can, just so she doesn’t have to dwell on the way her stomach’s turned to ice because Kasius left her.

She’s taken care of him through worse. She asked him to stay. She thought he might -

“Idiot,”she chastises herself as she struggles with the covers. They’re wrapped around her legs all wrong.

“Oh, you’re awake.”

Kasius reappears in the doorway, holding a flask in one hand and a washcloth in the other.

Sinara freezes mid-movement. She probably looks ridiculous, fighting her own bedding. She’s shaking too much to get anything done, though.

Kasius hurries to her, setting the flask down on the nightstand and dabbing at her forehead with the cool, damp cloth. She flinches away.

“It’s too cold,”she complains.

“I got your temperature down a little like this,”Kasius says but puts the cloth aside anyway. Instead he picks up the flask.“Have some tea, then, darling.”

She’s too pleased that he apparently didn’t actually stray far from her side to be embarrassed that he has to help her into a sitting position so she can have a few sips of tea.

It doesn’t manage to spread its warmth further than her throat. She hands the flask back when she starts worrying she might drop it.

Kasius watches her intently as she lies back down, pulling the covers over her because she still doesn’t manage, and then the coverlet too. She only has the stupid thing because he thinks it’s pretty but it does add a little warmth now, at least.

She can’t stop shivering even with the added layer, even as she curls up as small as possible.

“Do you want a sweater?”Kasius asks.

Sinara shakes her head. Clothes feel wrong against her feverish skin.

His hand strokes along her side soothingly.“Do you want me to hold you?”

She almost says no. This is dangerously close to actually talking about their unacknowledged relationship. But she does want. So she nods.

She knows she’s clammy and probably quite disgusting but it doesn’t stop Kasius from kissing the junction of her neck and shoulder as he pulls her to him.

His arms around her, his body pressed against hers are familiar and yet, at the same time, strangely novel. They’ve never shared a bed just to sleep.

She shifts closer against him, pushes all thoughts away. Doesn’t allow herself to dwell on how he might mean those things he sometimes whispers into the dark, the things they pretend don’t exist in the light of day.

She’s much too tired to try and make sense of all that.

And maybe a little afraid of the answer.

* * *

Kasius doesn’t get much sleep; even once Sinara has stopped shaking like a leaf he can’t relax enough to drift off.

The doctor assured him she would be fine, that the shots had still been administered on time and there were no lasting damages to be expected.

That does nothing to keep Kasius from worrying. He keeps checking her pulse, careful not to wake her in the process. He does not have to make the effort with her breathing - the high-pitched whistling that accompanies every other breath, followed by rattling, lets him keep track easily, though it’s worrisome.

Almost as worrisome as Sinara so readily agreeing to allow him to hold her. At times she even objects to that after sex. Though that doesn’t happen so much lately, really, she still must be pretty out of it to have let him pull her into his arms now, with no unspoken excuse about it being just some post-coital whim.

The warmth he provides might be a suitable substitute as reasoning, perhaps. Whatever the case, he holds her close and watches over her, and wishes he could do more for her.

* * *

Sinara is glad she’s not one for crying or else sheer frustration would have her in tears by now. The sweating left her clammy and uncomfortable; the rash on her ribs needed cleaning, too. She couldn’t make it to the shower without Kasius’ help. Worse yet, she could make it back out even less.

He has to help her to stay on her feet any longer and wraps her in a huge, fluffy towel she is relatively certain she doesn’t actually own.

“I’m fine,”she snaps when he sets to actually helping her dress. Or she would have snapped, had it not come out so weakly.

“I know,”he soothes. He smiles at her and strokes her cheek.“Indulge me?”

She nods, pretends to be annoyed, knowing full well he has the right of it and she can’t do it herself.

She frowns when he settles her back in bed. The sheets are fresh. Which is nice, of course, but-

“I changed them,”Kasius says before she can ask.

She doesn’t like anyone near her things, especially not the Terran servitors.

“A first for everything,”she mumbles and he chuckles.

She tugs on his shirt wordlessly, snuggling up against him when he follows the request and lays down. She’s not cold anymore, really.

His arms around her make her feel better anyway.

* * *

The doctor has finally declared Sinara healthy again.

Kasius double checks her labs before the tension melts from his shoulders. He kisses her forehead.“You’re perfect, darling.”

“I’m tired is what I am,”she says but she’s smiling.

“Of course.” He drops another kiss on her forehead.“I’ll let you get some rest.”

He’s almost at the door when Sinara says his name. He turns around, hand on the door.“Sinara?”

“You could sleep here again,”she says.

“If you want me to,”he says. He’s impressed with himself at how evenly the words come out, even though his mind is racing with the implications her request holds. Might hold.“You needn’t be worried, though. You’re cured. You won’t need me tonight.”

She just looks at him for a long while, tongue darting out to wet her lips. Then she throws back the bedcovers.“I’m not worried.”

“Good,”Kasius gets out, and joins her in bed.

They say no more on the matter that night. He’s fairly certain it would be in bad taste to give her a heart attack hot on the heel of the pox, so he postpones any deep confessions.

For now.

**Author's Note:**

> and that's it from me for this decade! ;)  
> happy new year's, lovelies <3


End file.
